Aug 8/2024 What really happened that fateful night of Feb 2/2008, and the days leading up to Lindsay’s murder?
This first post was made by a “REDDIT unresolved” poster back in 2018. Then months later, that same poster MachineLearnedHand made a 2nd post. Both were so incredibly written I thought it was worth bringing over to this website. It certainly explains a lot of things and is a perfect refresher for those looking to remember the intricate details of Lindsay’s case. I have no idea who this poster is, in fact I only happened upon this old post today for the first time. It is just interesting that the writer’s focus is entirely on the Zailo family and no mention whatsoever of the Calgary Drug Bust or the people involved.
MachineLearnedHand:
Because an archival thread has already been posted on this subject,
I’ll refer those of you who are unfamiliar with the background of the investigation into Lindsay Buziak’s murder to review that thread and the wiki page associated with the subject. Quite simply, Lindsay was a young real estate agent who was brutally murdered in the home she was showing 10 years ago on Feb. 2, 2008.
Based on what little evidence has been made publicly available (and a haphazard viewing of intermittent Dateline bits), it is my strong suspicion that at least one person employed at the Re/Max Camosun office at the time of the murder orchestrated the hit with 3+ conspirators—one of whom was female and knew Lindsay well, another who was female but unknown to Lindsay, and a male who likewise was unknown or only vaguely acquainted with Lindsay.
I base my suspicion largely on (i) the great efforts taken to conceal the identity of the orchestrator(s), indicative not of persons orchestrating a professional hit but a personal one designed to kill absolutely and eliminate all evidence tracing back to them out of anticipation that one of them would be a natural suspect of the homicide investigation, (ii) a female co-conspirator’s knowledge of a previous client of Lindsay’s (who I presume did not, in fact, recommend Lindsay unless the client was an agent of the conspirators, unwittingly or knowingly), and (iii) obvious real estate experience of the orchestrator and at least one female conspirator.
The elaborateness of the scheme and extraordinary steps to conceal identities certainly reflect cold,
calculated and extensive planning, beginning months in advance of the murder (based on when the burner cell—registered under the suspected alias Paulo Rodriguez—was purchased in Vancouver). But perhaps most importantly, it suggests the orchestrators were foremost motivated to conceal their identities from both Lindsay and police at every step, presumably because they were very close to Lindsay and expected at least one of the conspirators to be a primary suspect of the resulting homicide investigation; it was therefore in the best interests of the co-conspirators to set up an elaborate diversion that would reduce suspicion implicating their involvement and divert investigatory resources toward that promising, well-planned diversion and away from someone who would be a usual suspect of a suspicious homicide evidencing a deeply personal motive to kill.
Due to the depth of obviously concerted planning by persons who likely shared a mutual interest in protecting the orchestrator (who would ordinarily be a suspect if the homicide was of a suspicious nature—e.g.: staged burglary),
I suspect the orchestrator and at least one integral co-conspirator were consanguine, deeply loyal to each other. Naturally, these two persons would be especially interested in involving themselves in the homicide investigation for the purpose of influencing the (mis)allocation of investigatory resources in furtherance of the diversion, perhaps even propounding fabricated evidence or leads to investigators and media through hired mouthpieces (oral and written) or taking affirmative steps to quash any leads pointing in their direction.
FACTUAL ANALYSIS OF THE CASE
The public record shows that Lindsay Buziak received a call-in late January 2008 from a woman who conveyed to Lindsay a pressing interest in buying prime real estate for her and her husband because they expected their principal to undergo a corporate transfer. This call was one of several calls made between the time of activation (approximately 48 hours before the murder according to Dateline) and the murder from a device registered to a Paulo Rodriguez, which authorities rightly suspect was a fictitious name.
According to Lindsay, the caller had a foreign accent that she could not place, sounding “a bit Spanish but not really.” Lindsay believed the caller may have been faking an accent in order to conceal her identity. Unnerved by the nature of the call, Lindsay asked the caller how she had got her personal cell phone number, as she was a relatively junior employee. The caller said that a previous client of Lindsay’s had passed it on to her. Still feeling suspicious, Lindsay attempted to contact the previous client to check this, but they were out of the area and unreachable.
The coupling of the female conspirator’s using a Spanish-sounding accent so fake as to raise Lindsay’s suspicion with the ostensibly Hispanic/Latin ethnicity of the burner’s fictitious registrant suggests the orchestrator(s) and aforementioned female conspirator were in all likelihood Caucasians seeking to disguise the female caller’s voice, believing it to be recognizable to Lindsay.
Lindsay told her boyfriend, Jason Zailo, and her father, Jeff Buziak,
about the call and revealed her concerns. Jason encouraged Lindsay to take on the client because of the high commission she would get from the sale, and to reassure her, Jason offered to be outside the property in his car in case anything went wrong. Lindsay found a suitable property [3] and made an appointment with the client to view it at 5:30 pm on Saturday 2 February 2008. The client then told Lindsay that her husband would not be able to attend the viewing and that she would come alone.
Undoubtedly, the female client’s revelation that her husband would not attend the viewing was designed to assuage Lindsay’s concerns, which the client discerned either through their series of calls with Lindsay or, just as plausibly, from another source with firsthand knowledge of Lindsay’s fears who “tipped” off the client [read co-conspirator] of the necessity to withdraw the husband from the arrangement.
Considering the apparent gravity of Lindsay’s manifest fears at the time the appointment was scheduled after having already discussed them with Jason and Jeff, Jason’s encouragement for his girlfriend’s continuance with the arrangement based solely on the prospect of a high commission and his presence outside in a parked car—”in case something went [noticeably past tense] wrong”—seemed oddly misplaced and without regard for her safety.
It would have been clear to both parties that his 6’1 245 lb presence outside would merely have had a deterrent or mitigating effect, not a preventive one to the satisfaction of Lindsay. Notwithstanding the futileness of his outside presence, Jason must still have fully appreciated Lindsay’s reliance on his reassurance, which she herself cited in conversation with her father, Jeff. Yet Jason, on the day of what he allegedly thought would be the most important career-enhancing event of his ambitious girlfriend’s life, lumberingly showed up late to the viewing, a mishap mitigated only by an exchange of texts that, according to him, made Lindsay aware he would be arriving late—not to (belatedly) accompany her or even park outside for her security as agreed-upon but to “drop off some papers.”
Upon arriving, Jason told Dateline he parked outside and saw two silhouettes through the smoke-tinted glass of the front door but did not,
contrary to unusually concrete statements according to crimewatch (“Who killed Lindsay Buziak? Realtor’s murder believed to be targeted hit”. crimewatch. Retrieved 2017-09-29.), see them come out of the house and turn around to go back in (in which case Jason could not have overlooked or failed to recall the conspicuous dress of the alleged blonde client).
He then stated he exited the cul-de-sac and pulled up beside the house along Torquay Drive because he did not want to be “a nosey, interfering boyfriend.” But this tends to not only conflict with his stated purpose of being there to merely drop off papers—hardly a task of the kind that would warrant even a fleeting concern of interference in light of her desire for his accompaniment—but also belies his heavy involvement in Lindsay’s real estate dealings as her mortgage broker, much less with respect to one he purportedly believed to be of the utmost significance.
In short, it would be unfathomable for a boyfriend who was integrally involved in financing her transactions and who expressed deep concern for her safety during a viewing at which he was made aware “the Mexicans” [emphasis on the plural] had attended to have left his positioning at the front of the house for the trivial reason stated.
Respectfully, my intent with this post was not to draft a comprehensive evidentiary record but to shed new light on undisputed critical facts,
seemingly bizarre behavior, and conflicting statements based on an inductive framework—i.e.: instead of deductively reasoning from a premise that select suspects must have committed the murder, I simply induced a profile of the persons likely to have committed it based on critical facts I know to be true and deduced from it their reasoning or purpose for taking certain actions.
Far from exculpatory, Jason’s actions and words, especially his bringing along a colleague, neatly fit what the profiled, natural suspect of this homicide investigation would do to conceal their involvement (as they had done so meticulously at every step of the conspiracy): establish a verifiable alibi at the supposed time of death and insert themselves in such a way as to make the alternate theory [read diversion] more probable, i.e., that the “Mexican” couple, a label assumedly dictated by Jason to enhance the likelihood that Lindsay would dismiss her instant reservations concerning the female caller’s fake Spanish accent and that the agents would be misidentified by police, acted alone under a third-party theory or as principals.
But this alternate theory is implausible. Lindsay was brutally stabbed approximately 40 times with peculiar mutilation of the chest area, evidencing a deeply personal rage toward her beyond what crazed strangers acting alone or even slighted—albeit heavily disguised—acquaintance acting without coercive economically or otherwise direction would likely have harbored. And non-schizoid psychopathic serial killers’ zeal to exercise control over victims in chaotic situations but rarely act as part of a duo, stab first in the back when the victim would be particularly weak and powerless. (Even if they may generally target weak victims such as children, the elderly, and the disabled) and the victim’s forward-facing fright would be imperceptible to them, and elaborately scheme to carry out the killing in a specific, windowless second-level room/hallway (which would require extraordinary impulse-inhibition on the part of the serial killer not to kill upon entry).
So, Lindsay was killed either by an enraged third person lurking in the second level of the house
(which is especially likely in light of the killer’s stabbing her in the back) or by the couple she either did not know or merely faintly knew who covertly acted under a mastermind’s wicked, coercive direction. Either way, the killing was designed to minimize resistance, minimize forensic evidence, deliver a message, ensure completion, and ultimately conceal the identity of orchestrators with interests seemingly so grave and pervasive even the slightest risk of exposure necessitated successful mitigation; the agents were simply the lure for Lindsay, pawns for the orchestrators, and diversion for investigators.
What I’m having difficulty with is why Lindsay, if the witness by happenchance perceived without defect or fabrication her greeting the couple,
would have proceeded with the showing when (a) the “husband” unexpectedly showed, (b) the insincerity of or any deviation from the female’s fake accent, as Lindsay believed it to be, likely would have been discernible in person even if meaningfully obscured by her attention-calling dress, and (c) the couple apparently walked on foot to the million-dollar house, a fact which would have been known to Lindsay if true given “her” acknowledgment of their arrival (“the Mexicans are here”)?
NOTABLY, C WOULD EXPLAIN
- why at least one witness saw them walking toward the house on the cul-de-sac,
- why the man walked out the front door as was originally stated by Jason and regurgitated as truth by the police despite there being no vehicle seen out front before walking back in, and
- the need for an attention-calling dress to distract potential witnesses unless the couple’s getaway vehicle was parked in front during the murder but subsequently relocated to the back within the four minutes immediately following the murder (if completed by 5:41 as hypothesized) but before Jason’s arrival with a colleague.
But if the man indeed walked out the front door before seeing Jason and walking back in,
which is an unusually concrete fact provably true or false and incapable of distortion—at least in the mind of one whose memory was keenly fresh at the time it was related to authorities—to the degree required to explain Jason’s inconsistent statement that he merely saw two silhouettes through the smoke-tinted glass of the front door, what was the purpose when doing so
(a) would have potentially subjected them to unwanted exposure,
(b) four minutes would have been an insufficient time to cleanse themselves of blood and change from blood-stained clothes (which they would have carried on their person) to avoid the inevitable appearance of impropriety walking would have created, and
(c) their getaway vehicle was necessarily (and strategically) stationed at that time amidst the shrubbery out back and accessible through an enclosed backyard and the narrow space of the fence where three boards were kicked in from the outside?
THERE’S ONLY ONE THEORETICALLY POSSIBLE THEORY AND IT’S A SPURIOUS ONE.
Obviously walking to the house would have made sense because there would have been (and apparently was) only one vehicle capable of identification by bystanders or the colleague, assuming the latter wasn’t an unwitting, low-level co-conspirator. But I outright reject the possibility Lindsay would have let the walking couple in under the aforementioned circumstances unless the getaway vehicle was pre-parked (presumably by the killer lurking about on the second level) along the curb in the front of the house, was luxurious or quasi-luxurious in make and model to give the appearance of money, and was represented to Lindsay as the couple’s upon their alleged return from a stroll down the cul-de-sac.
But this begs the question: if the vehicle was pre-parked along the curb, do you think Lindsay would have proceeded to show the house with the husband unexpectedly present, the couple arriving by foot after a “stroll,” and without Jason—whom she relied upon being there if not accompanying her—being present but being only “minutes away”? If not, how would one reconcile the witness’s statement of glancingly seeing a person who looked like Lindsay greeting the couple with the facts indicating Lindsay was murdered on the second level of the house?
The only reasonable inference I can draw if a showing did not occur was that Lindsay, whose body was apparently discovered cold and stiff based on Jason’s statement to Dateline of her bodily condition,
was murdered while roaming the premises (either while investigating a noise/disturbance upstairs or doing a last-minute inspection) in anticipation of the showing, that the statement “the Mexicans are here” was made by the killer if by text (using her BlackBerry keyboard with/without protection) or was in fact made by her upon seeing the pre-parked vehicle, that witness testimony attesting to the greeting with the couple was false, and that witness testimony attesting to the mysterious couple walking was either deliberately false or, if not, simply reflective of the orchestrators’ attempt at creating a diversion that was, in fact, unrelated to the actual execution of the murder.
This scenario clearly implicates a greater number of co-conspirators who can be exploited for information. But it doesn’t suffer from the puzzling issues concerning Lindsay’s continuance with the showing, it is simple, and it explains away the myriad of conflicting or dubious statements, by interested parties, as lies. I do think it is important for impartial third parties without a personal stake in the investigation (except to see justice done) to carefully evaluate the evidence with an objective lens. But there’s a sea of difference between unmoored speculation—based on a mere surmise—and rational inferences drawn from known facts or evidence upon which a solid circumstantial case can be constructed.
I simply assumed the presence of silhouettes (or a clearly defined “man” and “woman,” depending on which conflicting version you adopt) at the front door signaled the murder’s completion and triggered an agreed-upon 10-minute window for cleanup and escape, during which time Jason remained parked out front where his passenger (Cohen) would have been incapable of witnessing events transpiring in the backyard.
Then, upon the expiration of the scheduled 10-minute window, Jason (likely cautiously) rolled around onto Torquay to confirm the absence of the getaway vehicle that had been stationed out back, finally signaling a successful escape and triggering a second 10-minute increment—the passage of which firmly distanced Jason’s point of first contact with Lindsay (when her body was “cold”) from the time of murder and cleared the way for a series of pretextual actions, such as the text at 5:55 when the risk of incriminating information being elicited from Lindsay in a dying declaration would have been infinitesimal.
But, Jason’s view of the top of the open patio doors from Torquay would have been clear—or at least clearer than a view of the shrouded back alley/easement where the getaway vehicle necessarily was—in the dead of winter; and such visibly open doors would have served as a convenient sign of something gone awry for a seemingly neutral bystander like Cohen to discover following Jason’s directions for him to check the patio/go around with the front door locked and suspicions aroused. So, it makes sense that the patio doors may have been intentionally left open as a concrete signal.
And I too am fairly confident Jason had a nefarious motive in relocating his Land Rover:
Jason said his reasoning for moving his vehicle out of the cul-de-sac and onto the main road—away from his prime positioning in front of the house—was because he did not want to be “[the] nosey, interfering [or meddling] boyfriend” even though (i) his stated purpose there was to “drop off some papers”; (ii) he agreed to be present for Lindsay’s security either outside or, more likely, to accompany her inside, (iii) he knew—based on her manifest reservations and reliance on his assurance to be present—that she would not have shown the house unless he agreed to be (and would be) present; (iv) he emphatically encouraged her to proceed with the showing; (v) he was substantially involved in financing her real estate transactions; and (vi) he knew that one member of the couple unexpectedly showed[.]
It’s not speculation, for example, to infer that Jason may have had the ulterior motive of substantiating his alibi at the time of the murder and non-involvement in the planning by
- verifiably placing his vehicle at the specific auto-shop (SHC) at 5:30,
- telling Lindsay, “I’ll come meet you and I’ll be 10 – 15 minutes or so,” soon thereafter,
- texting Lindsay, “just a couple of minutes away,” at 5:38,
- having an unwitting (likely) or conspiring witness attest to his exact whereabouts and actions around the supposed time of death,
- telling police, he saw two silhouettes through the smoke-tinted glass of the front door (tending to further the theory that third parties (i.e. “the Mexicans”) committed the murder and/or serve as a signal),
- texting Lindsay, “are you OK?,” at approximately 6:05 or 20 minutes after arrival, though Detective Sgt. Horsley stated to Dateline, “the last text Jason said was, ‘[I’m] just a couple of minutes away,'” which is meaningful because the coupling of this text—which conflicts with Jason’s statement he texted Lindsay 20 minutes thereafter—with the alleged butt dial purportedly led Horsley & McColl to confidently pinpoint the TOD to 5:38–5:41: four minutes before Jason’s arrival, and
- calling 911, and, once inside, running straight to, and frantically waiving dispatched police to, where her body lay (to feign panicked, raw emotions weighing against his involvement)
WHEN THE FOLLOWING, IN TOTALITY, IMPLICATES HIM IN A FAMILIAL CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT THE MURDER
someone with access to or knowledge of a former client’s engagement with Lindsay and their unavailability the weekend of the murder used and planned to use this knowledge to quell Lindsay’s justifiable concern about how they acquired her phone number (unless we’re to believe the meticulous orchestrators actually traceably connected with the former client or left Lindsay’s willingness to show to chance along with their plot),
select persons with managerial access at the RE/MAX Camosun Westshore office where Lindsay worked at the time of the plot’s development included Jason’s mother, Shirley Zailo,
So, when someone voices their opinion that Jason’s facially plausible 911 call seemed suspicious under the circumstances, this is the context of facts and evidence upon which that opinion may have been rationally based, in whole or in part.
Like Jason’s alibi, I personally find his reasons for calling—but not the contents of the call, which have been withheld from scrutiny—plausible, but insincere and hardly exculpatory to a conspiracy to murder charge, which is precisely why I felt zero need to address either fact in a post designed to illuminate critical facts. And even if each incriminating fact outlined above were deemed facially plausible in isolation, it’s facially improbable—under the (legal) doctrine of coincidences—that all of them were coincidental.
This cumulative improbability’s heightened when any single “coincidence” is debunked. So, it’s reasonable to draw the inference that Jason, in concert with certain family members, is guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, an inherently circumstantial charge (because no fool puts it in writing)
Ultimately, I suspect Shirley was the mastermind with the motive to prevent the discovery of her family’s pervasive illicit dealings (or worse), which Lindsay threatened to disclose or threatened by virtue of knowing too much as a soon-to-be ex-girlfriend of Jason lacking the incentive to keep silent. Jason’s overhearing Lindsay’s intent to break their relationship up seems like it would have been the trigger begetting the conspiracy.
EMAIL ADDRESS: murderondesousa@gmail.com